


Tags

by koalathebear



Category: Terra Nova (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We see what Reynolds stores in his security tags – did we have any doubts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tags

The evening sun was warm on Maddy's skin as she and Mark leaned against the old tree in the compound, relaxing after a day of school for her and a day of patrols for him. "You sure you're comfortable?" Mark mumbled, his eyes closed as he enjoyed the sensation of just sitting there doing nothing with Maddy Shannon's head resting on his shoulder.

"Yeah. You?"

Mark nodded.

Maddy's gaze fell on the security tags hanging around his neck and she reached out and took them in her hand.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, wide awake now.

"Just looking at your tags," she explained, turning them over in her hands with curiosity. She knew that the tags contained personal information including blood type and a medical history and that there was also a locater.

"I've heard that people hack into them and put personal stuff on here, too."

"Yeah," he said briefly, moving his hand down to tuck the tags back under his shirt but Maddy had already started looking through the content.

"Hey that's personal," he protested, looking down at her lowered head which was so close to his as she examined the tags. "You got no call snooping through my blood type," he joked.

"Ah huh! What have we here .... ? Something masquerading as music ... " she wrinkled her nose. "Is this for you or do you use it for scaring off the dinosaurs? It's like cruel and unusual punishment."

"Very funny," he retorted, his light eyes narrowing in amusement.

"And here we have a hidden directory ...is this where I'll find your stash of secret porn?"

"Aren't you in for a disappointment," he remarked dryly.

The first photo was Mark and what may have been his original unit. She did not recognise some of the faces and the expression on his face made it unnecessary for her to ask what had happened to them. Maddy then frowned down at the next photo. "Is that supposed to be me?" she asked him.

"It _is_ you," he told her.

"It's the back of my head."

"The back of your head is still you. It's the best that I could do given the circumstances – your dad already thinks I'm an evil stalker."

"Oh yeah, your severed ear collection – we really need to talk about that some time," she commented absently, flicking through the photos curiously as Mark shook his head at her. "These are _all_ of the back of my head - were you hiding behind a tree or something?"

"Or something," he said unexpansively.

She fished her cam out of her bag and handed it to him. With a smile he held his arm out and took several photos of them together – pulling faces, smiling, looking serious. Then he insisted on taking a few photos of her on her own – smiling up at him, eyes crinkling against the sun ... She watched as he transferred the photos over.

"Thank you," he said simply.

"You're welcome. I'll have the photos for my Plex, too even though that's not quite as cool as having illicit content on dog tags."

"It's so sad that you'll never be as cool as me - I feel sorry for you," Mark said sympathetically, a droll expression in his eyes.

***

The jungle ground was cold and hard beneath the sleeping bag and Mark could hear his men shifting uncomfortably around him.

By contrast, Mark barely noticed the discomfort as he lay there in the darkness studying the images repeating on his tag – a goofy smile, a laughing face, two grinning faces, lopsided from the laughter making the camera tilt, Maddy's face smiling up at him with the sun in her eyes ...

***

There was a long silence in the room as the Shannons took in the scene.

"What happened?"

Taylor and his men stood in the infirmary, silent and respectful as Jim and Elisabeth stood staring in horror at the body of the young soldier that had been brought in.

"He died protecting his fellow soldiers and his colony – we give thanks to him for his sacrifice," Taylor finally said, emotion softening the formality of his words as he stared down at the body of the young man who had been devoted to him in a way that his own son had never been.

"Forget that," Jim exclaimed roughly. "How the hell am I going to tell my daughter?"

"Mark? _Mark?_ "

The tears in Elisabeth's eyes started spilling as she heard her daughter's frantic voice from outside the infirmary.

"Honey – " she said in vain as her daughter rushed into the infirmary, looking around desperately.

"Mom – where's Mark, they told me that - "

Maddy froze on the spot as she stared down at gurney. She looked up at her mother, horror and disbelief in her face.

" _No_ ," she breathed in denial and walked over to him slowly. His face was unharmed and peaceful, eyes closed as though he were sleeping.

She looked up at her mother in disbelief, shaking her head her eyes brimming with tears, _"Mom?"_ she whispered, as though she was begging. Elisabeth's throat was tight and she was completely unable to speak. "Mom – he's still _warm_ ..." Maddy pleaded. _Do something ..._ Her face was almost childlike in its bewilderment, dazed and crumpled up with sorrow.

"Maddy he's gone," Jim told her gently.

***

"I'm worried about her, Jim." Elisabeth's eyes were blurred with tears.

"I know you are," he said sadly. "Give her time – it sounds harsh but she's young, he was her first crush – she'll get over it."

"I think you may underestimate the devotion genes she has inherited," Elisabeth told him, displaying a greater understanding of their daughter than he did.

Maddy lay curled up in her bed, Mark's tags clutched tightly in her hands. From time to time, she looked at them, put the photos on repeat and saw the smiling, laughing faces looking back at her. When she saw the damned photo of the back of her head – which for some reason he hadn't deleted – the breath caught in her throat and fresh tears slid down her face.

***

"Dr. Shannon?" A young voice piped up.

"You don't have to call me that," Maddy said with a faint smile on her face, turning around to stare at her young intern. "First of all, it's Maddy – secondly, given that I was never conferred that title formally as we have no places of higher learning – it's really just a courtesy title."

The young teenager shifted nervously, the hero worship evident in her eyes as she stared at the older woman who had achieved so much in her life and had become an indispensable part of society in this new world. Dr. Shannon's dark hair was pinned up loosely. Unlike other many other women, she did not colour her hair and the grey streaks in her hair were there for all to see. Her face was serene and smooth except for the fine lines around mouth and eyes that betrayed her age.

"Now that you're here, Pippa, you can help me catalogue all of these specimens," Maddy told her intern.

"Yes, Dr ... err Maddy," Pippa nodded enthusiastically, her blue eyes huge and wondering as she stared around the lab in awe.

There were some in the colony who accused Dr Madelyn Shannon of being selfish and not doing her part to contribute to society because she had made the choice not to marry and not to have children. People were expected to have children if they were fertile but Madelyn Shannon stood by her own decisions. Through her work, her contributions to the welfare and the advancement were almost unparalleled and it was a brave person who would dare to accuse her to her face.

Pippa stared in open curiosity at the security tags that hung from around the older woman's neck. She always wore them and when she was deep in thought, her hands would reach up to hold them, fingertips moving over them slowly as if they gave her inspiration.

"Did those ... did those tags belong to Sergeant Reynolds?" Pippa asked hesitantly. Everyone knew the reason why Dr Madelyn Shannon had chosen to risk public disapproval by remaining unmarried.

Maddy's hand went to her throat automatically, touching the tags gently.

"You must have been so sad when he was killed ..."

Maddy's mouth quivered slightly and she stared almost right through Pippa, quoting from some old poem of which Pippa had never heard.

" _I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,  
I made the garden, and for holiday   
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,   
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,   
And many a flower and medicinal weed -  
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys._"

"May I see?" Pippa asked, hoping that she did not offend.

Maddy smiled and Pippa stared down into the smiling face of a young man no older than herself, eyes bluer than the sky above the colony. Squashed up against him and also laughing was a younger version of the woman standing before her - lovely, vibrant and almost unrecognisable because of the sheer joy in her young eyes.

"Don't you think that he would have wanted you to marry and be happy?" Pippa couldn't help asking.

Maddy's fingertips touched the tags once more before tucking them away. "I have no doubt that he would have wished me every happiness, Pippa. I just never met anyone who could ever come close to making me feel the way that Mark did – and there are worse things than being alone, you know."

"I think he would be so proud of everything you've done with your life, Dr. Shannon – all the discoveries ... the medical advances .." Pippa's voice was filled with reverence.

Memories flickered as Maddy thought back to the look of pride and approbation in Mark's eyes for the mere fact that she could identify north during survival class.

"I know he would," Maddy agreed. "He definitely would."

**end**


End file.
